


Firefalls

by Sineala



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Backstory, Community: st_xi_kink, Grief, Kink Meme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-22
Updated: 2009-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can never go home again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firefalls

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt at st_xi_kink on LiveJournal: "When it all comes down, each and every member of the crew is insane. Sometimes they don't mind. Other times they look at who the Captain's become and wonder."

Mining ships, like the Narada, are -- will be -- expected to bide a long while in the Outmarches. Ayel knows this. He knew it when he signed on. And, of course, the people who choose to spend their lives mining in deepest space are often of a certain type. They are those who prefer an asteroid or a bare lifeless moon to the pleasures of sipping a cup of ale with one's House, surrounded by one's family and friends, all whom one loves. The second type of person usually stays home.

Ayel is beginning to wonder if he is becoming the second type.

Among miners, slightly more... eccentric... people have always been better tolerated than they are on the homeworlds, for the simple reason that once one is out here, there is no place else to go if a madman is on the crew. One of the engineers likes to talk to himself, but he was the only one who kept the engine singularity containment from failing after the Federation ship rammed them. The navigator, in her spare time, covers the walls of her quarters with equations that don't make any sense.

Nero is no exception. Nero is the man's fourth name, the name one gives oneself, the name that is not uttered except in the barest of whispers to a lover, to the closest friends. Nero demands that the entire crew call him by it.

Two months ago, after Nero had drunk the last of the good wine, he wept and laughed as he told Ayel how he came to name himself so. It was a Terran name, he said. The name of the leader of a vast empire on Earth, the empire the Terrans named them after, in their language. A great man.

Afterwards, Ayel checked the computer and found that the original Nero had been an insane tyrant who committed suicide. He was not particularly surprised.

They are not friends. Ayel has served with many he hated. But then, he always knew he could go home.

They have already been waiting in the past a year now. And still they stay far from inhabited space. They are waiting, Nero says, for Spock. They are here, alone in the dark, when they could go home, to a home that is not yet gone--

Tonight, Nero is drunk again. The rest of the Narada's crew know to stay away from him when he is in this state. Ayel knows this too, but he has no choice -- Nero's slurred voice on the comm summons him to his quarters.

He breathes in, and out, and enters.

Nero is sprawled on the deck. He stinks of cheap ale and tears dry slowly on his face. He is half-undressed, and his chest has a new grief-tattoo, scabbing green and starting to heal.

Nero looks up at him and half-smiles. "Ayel."

"Nero," Ayel responds, stiffly. "You had asked for me."

Nero's eyes unfocus and he licks his lips. "Did you ever see the firefalls of Gal Gath'thong?"

Ayel never has, actually. They are supposed to be beautiful; visitors from the colonies always ask to be taken to them when they first set foot upon the hearthworlds. He thought, always, that he would have another chance to see them, and so never went.

"I have not seen them."

"They were beautiful," Nero says, eyes misting in reminiscence. "They were living Fire, rising into Air, spilling over Earth." He looks as if he is about to cry again.

"So I have heard."

"Spock has destroyed them," Nero says, shortly, and shuts his eyes.

Is the man truly this mad? They have years yet until the supernova, and years even until Spock arrives.

"Nero," he ventures slowly. "They are still there, now. We could go--"

In a flash, Nero has leapt to his feet. Nero moves toward him, shoves, and Ayel feels his back slam into the bulkhead.

"They are gone! He has destroyed our home," Nero snarls, face bare inches from Ayel's. "He has killed my wife."

Nero's wife has not yet been born. Ayel swallows. "You are right; they are gone. She is dead."

A long silence stretches between them.

"I'll make do with you, eh?" Nero asks, roughly, and then kisses him.

He tastes entirely disgusting, like blood and tears and the lousy ale they sell to spacers too thirsty to care. Ayel does not struggle as Nero rips at his clothing.

Nero pushes him to the deck, face-down. Ayel feels tears fall on the back of his neck as his commander sobs, and then teeth against his skin. New scars. New grief.

Ayel knows he will not live to see the firefalls.


End file.
